


Alien

by Josselin



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Imported, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-10-21
Updated: 2003-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-20 17:07:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1518521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josselin/pseuds/Josselin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Warnings at the end (includes spoilers).</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Пришельцы](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7396738) by [analgin13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/analgin13/pseuds/analgin13)



> Warnings at the end (includes spoilers).

“How hard it is to tell what it was like...”  
Dante’s _Inferno_ , Canto I

* * *

Retrospectively, Brian decided that it all began that one Sunday morning in the diner. Sunday mornings are somewhat traditional as being more spiritual than perhaps the usual weekday morning, but for Brian Kinney, Sunday mornings were more traditionally spent in bed, recovering from a massive hangover, so of course he botched the whole thing up.

* * *

Brian’s half-listening to Michael’s enthusiastic story about the creepy guy who’d been stalking him at the supermarket the day before when Emmett and Justin walk into the diner. Emmett looks exhausted and pained; in contrast, Justin’s practically bouncing with energy. Emmett sort of collapses slowly into the booth, leaning his head on Michael’s shoulder and groaning softly. “Water.” Emmett says pathetically. “Eggs. Over easy.”

Justin slides in opposite Emmett and greets Brian with an enthusiastic kiss, only afterwards bothering with a verbal greeting. “Hey,” he says to Brian, grinning.

“Hey,” Brian says reflexively in response. “Where the fuck were you last night?” This comment reveals, of course, that Brian is accustomed to knowing where Justin is during the night hours, and might even have worried about Justin when he wasn’t aware of his whereabouts. But no one at the table takes any particular notice of the implications of the question.

“I crashed with Emmett at the munchers,” Justin explains quickly, then moving on his more exciting news. “You’ll never believe what happened to Emmett and I last night.”

Brian and Michael look from hyper-Justin to suffering-Emmett, and then at each other, and then back to Justin, Brian with a carefully bland look, and Michael with a quizzical expression. “Do you want to tell them, or should I?” Justin asks Emmett, who only whimpers in response. “Emmett and I saw an alien spaceship,” Justin announces excitedly.

There’s a moment of complete silence, and then Michael bursts out laughing. “Yeah, I saw a lot of aliens, too,” Michael agrees. “After they gave out those stupid antennae headbands at Babylon and sprayed green body paint all over the place.”

After a second, Brian joins him with a disbelieving half laugh/half cough. “Okay,” Brian says, “no more drugs for you.”

Justin jokingly punches Brian in the shoulder. “Shut up. I didn’t do any drugs. The spaceship was just amazing. Emmett, tell them what you remember,” Justin says coaxingly.

Emmett lifts his head off of Michael’s shoulder and faces Justin with an apologetic look. “I remember that I’m never, never, never, ever taking drugs from Anita again.”

“Whatever,” Justin says, still grinning. “Tell them about the spaceship!”

“There was no spaceship, honey,” Emmett says. “It was the drugs. Reason number four-hundred and thirty-three why you should never, never, never, ever do drugs.”

Justin frowns. “I didn’t do any drugs,” he protests. “I swear.”

“Well, what did the spaceship look like?” Michael asks reasonably.

Justin describes what he saw—a bright light in the sky, and then a circular-type ship, shining the light down on the field they were in.

“Hey,” Michael says, “that’s just like the Vawhe death beam space ship in the latest Space Invaders issue.”

Justin frowns slightly. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

“Weren’t you reading that yesterday at the shop?” Michael continues. “I remember you said something about the design of the villain’s spandex outfit.”

“Well, yeah, I guess so,” Justin agrees reluctantly. “But the ship we saw was…brighter,” he concludes.

“What the fuck were you doing out in a field?” Brian interrupts.

Justin frowns again. “I don’t remember, exactly. Emmett, what were we doing in the field?”

“Fuck if I know,” Emmett declares. “I don’t even remember a field.”

Brian nods with an expression on his face that indicates that he’s weighed all of the evidence and is coming to the only obvious conclusion. Michael looks at Justin with a vague sort of pity and amusement, and Emmett’s still whimpering and begging for coffee. Michael changes the subject back to his story about the creepy guy in the grocery store; Brian listens with his full attention now that his nagging worry about Justin is satisfied. And Justin sort of plays with his food instead of eating and is suspiciously silent.

* * *

So Brian thought that was the end of it. It wasn’t, of course. It was only the beginning.

* * *

One evening that week, Justin comes over after his classes are over. Later, Brian’s thankful that they at least fucked before the arguing started in earnest, which was over dinner, after they had showered and ordered takeout.

While shoveling chicken lo mein into his mouth, Justin begins talking excitedly about the picture he drew today. Brian sorts the food on his plate into separate quadrants before beginning to pick at it, half-listening to Justin and half wondering if he’ll be able to convince Justin to go fuck on the roof. Maybe he can entice Justin by promising that he’ll see more alien spaceships when he comes.

Brian tries this line on Justin, which does manage to make the boy stop talking, but only to gaze at Brian disapprovingly. “You’re not listening to me at all, are you?” Justin surmises.

Brian wonders if this can really be a surprise to Justin after knowing him this long. “I never listen to you.”

Justin rolls his eyes. “Brian, this is important.”

“How can a dream you had when you were tripping be important?”

“It wasn’t a dream! And I wasn’t on anything,” Justin protests, exasperated. “And it’s important because it had meaning for me.”

“Meaning?” Brian echoes incredulously.

“Yes,” Justin says firmly. “When I saw the light—it was just so beautiful. It was like everything in my life finally came clear to me in that moment.”

“Uh huh,” Brian says skeptically, having put his fork down and devoting his full attention to Justin. “I feel that way a lot—at the Baths.”

Justin sighs, as though God has particularly burdened him with having to put up with Brian. “And I listen to all of your stories about the guys you fuck at the Baths, don’t I? So you can suck it up and listen to my story, this once.”

“How about we skip the listening and go straight to the sucking part,” Brian offers.

“Brian!” Justin complains, starting to raise his voice, “This is not about sex!”

“That’s too bad, isn’t it?” Brian says, picking up his fork again and spearing a peapod. “If I’d been with you in that field instead of Emmett, all you would have been looking at is my dick, and we could have skipped the whole epiphany experience. Although,” Brian continues with a slight smile, “I actually think my dick has inspired a lot of epiphanies.”

Justin rolls his eyes again and picks up his empty plate to begin clearing the table, even though Brian’s probably eaten a grand total of one peapod and maybe a grain of rice that was stuck to it.

Carrying the empty dishes, he stops next to Brian’s place at the table and leans over close to his face. “Well, I’m glad you weren’t there,” Justin says, “because this experience was more amazing than any fuck.”

Brian’s face has the most amazing astonished expression on it as Justin walks over to the sink.

* * *

The next weekend brought them all back to Babylon again, despite Emmett’s hung-over oaths the past Sunday about giving up dance clubs. Brian’s in the backroom since Justin’s still pissed with him, and Justin had been dancing but is now sitting up on a stool at the bar, sketching on a napkin. Emmett joins Justin, capturing the stool next to him.

“Hey, honey,” Emmett greets Justin. “You tired of dancing already? The night is still young!”

Justin looks up with a grin. “Hey Em. I’m just distracted, I guess.”

“By what?” Emmett sneaks a look at the napkin, where Justin has sketched the now-familiar shape of the alien ship and the beam of light below it. “Oh,” Emmett says, something darker coloring his tone.

Justin looks up again, gives Emmett a tight smile, and pulls his napkin back to add a few more lines to it. Emmett sighs a little. “Look, baby,” he says, tipping Justin’s chin up to force Justin to look at him. “I’m sorry I don’t remember anything,” Emmett offers. “I wish I could.”

Justin laughs weakly. “Well, I know how that feels.”

* * *

On Monday, Brian brings a trick back to the loft with him at lunch, only to find Justin sitting on the couch with a huge stack of books next to him on the coffee table. He jerks, startled, when Brian opens the loft door, and when he sees the other guy Brian has with him, he quickly begins to pack his entire stack of books in his backpack.

Brian abandons his trick in the doorway to come investigate what Justin’s doing.

“Sorry,” Justin says, wrinkling his nose. “I didn’t realize you’d be here. I just needed a quiet place to read—but I’ll just head back to the library.”

“What are you reading?” Brian asks, grabbing the last book from the coffee table before Justin can snatch it and pack it away. Brian raises an eyebrow at the title. “ _True Stories of Extra-Terrestrial Encounters_?”

Justin closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and waits. “Why the fuck are you reading this?” Brian demands.

“Why do you think?” Justin counters.

“Hey, man,” the trick interrupts from the doorway. “Are we doing something here, or no?”

“Get out,” Brian shouts back at the trick, without taking his eyes off Justin and his books.

Justin clears his throat. “I still think it’s time for me to go.”

Brian shakes his head. “You wanna talk, let’s talk. Why are you reading this shit?”

“I don’t need to explain myself to you,” Justin says acidly. “Give me my fucking book back. I’m leaving.”

“You do if you come read in my apartment while I’m not here,” Brian says. “Tell me why you’re reading this or I won’t give it back to you.”

“Christ, Brian,” Justin says exasperatedly. “Fine, keep the damn book. You’re acting like a two-year-old. I’m outta here.” And he zips up his backpack and slams the loft door on his way out, leaving Brian standing alone in the middle of his living room holding a book about aliens.

“Fuck.”

* * *

On Tuesday, Brian sneaks into the back of the diner and puts Justin’s library book back in his bag without saying anything. Justin gives him evil looks when bringing his coffee; Brian assumes he hasn’t found the book yet, or maybe he’s just still pouting—Justin’s like that. But on Wednesday, by which point Brian assumes Justin must have found the returned library book, Justin is still frigid while pouring scalding hot coffee. Brian begins to consider desperate measures—like, actually talking with Justin or something.

On Thursday morning, as he’s gathering his briefcase to head out the door, Brian gets a phone call from Justin’s mother. “He’s not here,” he tells her.

“Oh,” Jennifer says, sounding somewhat worried and generally motherly, which irks Brian at a subconscious level for reasons he’s never going to completely identify. “Well, if you see him, can you give him a message?”

“What’s the message?” Brian asks, adjusting his tie.

“Just remind him that he has an appointment with the neurologist tomorrow morning at 9:30.”

“Is something wrong?” Brian says quickly.

“No, it’s just a routine checkup. I just don’t want him to forget. I’ll leave a message with Daphne, too, hopefully he’ll get it.”

“You might try Deb, too,” Brian suggests. “I think he works this afternoon.”

Jennifer says thanks and hangs up, and Brian heads off to work, turning things over in his head as he drives.

Once at work, he begins pulling up websites on head injuries—he has all the most reputable ones bookmarked on his laptop—and starts searching to see if seeing random bright lights can be a lingering aftereffect of a major brain injury.

Three o’clock finds him stalking the halls of PIFA, and finally rounding the corner to Justin’s favorite studio. Brian knocks on the door but then charges right in without waiting for a response.

Justin’s in there reading a book, and looks up, startled, when Brian comes in. Brian recognizes the book—it’s the one he put back in Justin’s backpack at the diner. Justin’s face falls when he recognizes Brian, and he gives a little sigh. “What do you want?”

“Your mother called,” Brian says, as though that’s enough of an excuse to leave work and hunt Justin down at school in the middle of the day. “She wants to make sure you don’t forget your doctor’s appointment tomorrow.”

“I know,” Justin says calmly. “She left me a message on my cell.”

Brian goes over to the window and stares out at the gorgeous Pittsburgh alley that Justin has a view of. He thinks that he and Justin have fucked in that alley, actually, but it’s hard to be sure—there are so many alleys and they all look different in the dark, and Brian’s never paying much attention to the surroundings anyway. “Justin,” he says finally, staring out the window and fingering his bracelet. He turns back to Justin, who is looking at him patiently waiting for him to spit it out, probably hoping for an apology or something. “When you go to the doctor, mention the light that you saw last weekend.”

Justin’s brow furrows. “Why?”

“Because you say you weren’t doing any drugs and I believe you. But seeing lights like that can be a lingering sign of head injuries. . .” Brian trails off uncomfortably—there’s a reason they never talk about this. “Just mention it to the doctor,” he concludes.

Justin gives a little sigh, and runs his fingers through his hair. “Please?” Brian says, clearing his throat. “Just so I won’t have to worry.”

Justin shakes his head resignedly. “All right,” he agrees. “I’ll mention it to the doctor.”

“Good,” Brian says, but he doesn’t leave right away, still staring out at the alley. “So,” he says finally, acting diffident. “Do you want to come over tonight?”

* * *

Justin does come over that evening, and he ends up leaving his backpack there when he leaves for the doctor. When he gets back from his appointment, he finds Brian at the loft, ostensibly working from home, but actually he seems to be staring at a book lying open next to his keyboard.

“Hey,” Justin says, sliding the door shut behind him, and Brian looks up guiltily. “Whatcha reading?” Justin asks.

“Nothing,” Brian says. “Work stuff. What did the doctor say?”

“Everything’s fine,” Justin says. “And the PT said my hand has more range of motion now than they ever anticipated.”

“What he’d say about the light?”

Justin sighs, and heads for the fridge. “He said it’s probably nothing.”

“Probably?” Brian echoes, following Justin over to the counter.

Justin pours some juice into a glass, and Brian takes a moment to appreciate that he can do that, can hold a glass with his left hand pour with his right, because there was a time when that seemed like a distant dream. “Why aren’t you at work?” Justin asks.

Brian will not be dissuaded. “Why might it not be nothing?”

Justin sighs. “If I really wasn’t doing drugs or drinking, which are the far more likely explanations, then it’s possible that visual hallucinations would be a sign of some sort of lingering damage to the front lobe.”

Brian has a tight expression on his face. “But you said you weren’t high.”

“I didn’t do drugs. But I had a couple of drinks, and who knows what might have got slipped in one of them or something.” Justin gives an exaggerated who-knows gesture.

“Did you tell him that?”

Justin turns back to the fridge. “Brian, I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“But it’s a nothing that’s had you obsessively reading crackpot theories about coasters in the sky for two weeks.”

Justin sighs heavily. “Look—would you just forget about it?”

“I want **you** to forget about it,” Brian says stubbornly, leaning his elbows on the counter.

“I think I’ve done enough forgetting, thanks,” Justin says, grabbing his backpack off the floor. “I need to go.”

“Justin,” Brian says lingeringly.

Justin stops in front of the open door to raise an impatient eyebrow.

“Promise me that if it happens again, you’ll tell the doctor. If anything happens,” Brian says.

“Fine.” And Justin’s out the door and down the stairs before Brian can say anything more.

* * *

Things continue to be weird between them—they’re not arguing outright, at least Brian doesn’t think they are, because if they are he for one doesn’t know what they’re arguing about. But Justin talks less than he used to, so Brian doesn’t know what he’s thinking all the time, and that makes him nervous. Justin seems distracted, too, often sketching quickly in his book but then slamming the cover down when Brian gets near to keep him from seeing what he’s working on.

Brian suspects that Justin is not working on a drawing of his cock.

Brian continues sneaking Justin’s research books out of his backpack and reading them, constantly trying to understand how one bad trip could really put Justin around the bend, and wondering if the right drugs could maybe make Justin forget about it again. When he’s reading one called _Understanding Your Alien Encounter_ Justin catches him. He’s sitting in his chair over by the window, and he’s hidden the book inside on of his trade magazines, but he falls asleep—he can only read about so many sightings of little green men before he drifts off--, and the magazine and book drop into his lap, and when he wakes up, Justin is blowing on his ear and giggling.

Justin teases him about his choice in reading material for a while, and Brian tries to shrug him off, and eventually they end up in bed, and Brian’s pleased that Justin seems pleased that he’s been reading the books, even if they are the most ridiculous things he’s ever read, even worse that Mikey’s comic books, which at least have drawings of hot guys in tights.

* * *

One morning the next week, Brian is working at home again, and makes an interesting discovery when he ignores the phone ringing and listens to the recording Daphne makes on the answering machine.

“Uh, Justin?” Daphne’s voice floats into the loft. “I’ve been trying to reach your cell, but I haven’t been able to get you for like a week now, you freak, and I haven’t seen you, so I just wanted to kind of check and make sure that you’re not dead.”

And that is very interesting indeed, because the previous afternoon, Brian could have sworn that Justin had said something about going over to Daphne’s to work on some homework or something, and if Justin’s been lying about this, that opens up a whole new can of worms. Like, where was he really, yesterday afternoon? And why did he lie about it?

Daphne hems and haws for a minute or so, and finally wraps up, “So, give me a call to let me know you’re okay. And come pick up your messages over here, too—there’s one on the machine from ‘Professor Lilliput’ asking about why you haven’t been to class in a week.”

And that’s even more disturbing, because though Justin isn’t adverse to ditching the occasional class, he’s a very conscientious student.

Daphne finally hangs up, and Brian stares at the answering machine, thinking.

* * *

After distractedly making his way through a conference call that afternoon, Brian leaves the loft and drives the ‘vette over to the abandoned field near Mikey’s apartment. He parks on the side of the road after scanning the street for potential vandalizing little brats, and then walks out into the grass towards the blond head he can see in the middle of the lot, kicking at a broken brown-glass beer bottle.

He plops down on the grass next to Justin, sitting cross-legged. “Hey,” he says, and Justin offers him a distracted smile without stopping the movements of his hand upon the page.

“Can I see what you’re drawing?” Brian asks finally, to get Justin to pause in his sketching if nothing else. Justin obligingly moves his hand and holds his sketchbook up for Brian’s inspection.

Brian examines the drawing of a spaceship. He doesn’t know very much about aliens or spaceships, but he knows enough about art to be able to tell that the way Justin has defined the lighting in the sketch is amazing—just pencil lines and yet the sense of the brightness of the ship is overpowering. “It’s good,” he says finally.

Justin frowns, biting his lip. “It’s not good enough, though,” he says. Brian raises an eyebrow. “I just…can’t express how beautiful it was,” Justin says, his voice conveying his frustration.

Brian frowns, and tries to think of something to say, something supportive and lesbian-like, but all he can think of is—It must have really been something, huh?—and he doesn’t think he can even say that with a straight face. “So,” he says after a silence, “have you gone to class at all this week?”

Justin stiffens at that comment, and Brian regrets saying it, because he doesn’t really want to argue with Justin, but on the other hand, he can’t not bring it up. Justin turns to face him, and Justin’s face is hard. “This is important,” Justin says, and Brian nods, slowly, as though he understands that.

There is another long stretch of silence, and Justin is back to the minute refinings of his drawing while Brian sits there, leaning back on his hands, and wishing that he’d brought his sunglasses and cigarettes with him from the car. He picks a blade of grass, and chews on the end, instead, feeling almost farmer-ish, except there’s a brick wall covered in graffiti twelve feet to his right, which is a comforting reminder. Some cars drive down the street behind them, the sound of their engines growing, and peaking, and then fading away again, and there’s a cricket in some corner of the field, and Brian wonders what the rule is again about counting cricket chirps to get the temperature, and wonders if Justin’s going to stop drawing in the field before the winter comes in a few months, or whether he’s going to have to buy the boy a wool hat.

“Justin,” Brian says finally, and Justin glances up warily. “Look,” Brian says, squinting into the sunlight, “whatever you do, you know I support you,” and he wants to continue, he wants to finish that with a ‘but I really think you should forget about the whole alien thing and go back to attending class regularly,’ but Justin’s face just lights up when he says it, and he can’t say anything more because Justin leans over and their lips meet. Then Justin tackles him down into the dust and weeds and cigarette butts, and all he can do is kiss the boy.

He wants to fuck Justin—he always wants to fuck Justin—but the middle of a field in daylight in the ghetto breeder area is definitely not the place. “Let’s go back to the loft,” Brian suggests, nipping at Justin’s neck. And when Justin nods his agreement, a weight is lifted off of Brian’s chest.

Brian stands up, and offers Justin a hand up, tugging him to his feet after Justin’s gathered up his various art supplies. They walk back through the field towards the car. “You know,” Brian says, “we could probably get a basic chemistry set and do some tests on the soil here—“

“Like the ones suggested at the back of _Aliens In Your Backyard_?” Justin interrupts excitedly. And on the way back to the car, Justin chatters about the possible meanings of a high iron nitrate level in the soil in the lot, and Brian holds his hand.

END PART ONE

* * *

Feedback welcome, as always.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Alien is starting to get disturbing now. This is just a short bit, because I got bored of writing. But I'll write more later.
> 
> If you want to see warnings for Alien, [go here.](http://www.livejournal.com/users/josselin/51309.html#cutid1) I don't recommend it because it spoils the ending of the fic, but I also don't want all of you to blame me later. Basically, if you don't think you're going to like the fic, you probably won't.

Justin wakes in the middle of the dark of the night, his heart palpitating in terror. He feels the way he did waking up from all of those horrible nightmares about Chris Hobbes—sweaty and panting and utterly terrified—but he can’t remember dreaming about anything this time.

Brian’s asleep with his head on Justin’s chest, drooling. Instinctively, Justin reaches out one hand to Brian’s shoulder and the other to the back of Brian’s head. “Brian. Wake up.” He shakes the man a little bit.

Brian stirs sleepily, finally lifting his head up. “What?”

Justin suddenly blanks on what to say. He thinks about saying he had a nightmare, but he’s not totally sure that he did, and Brian would try to make him talk about, and there’s nothing to say. But there’s nothing else wrong, ostensibly. “I’m freaked out,” he whispers finally.

Brian wakes up a little more, blinking. “Did you have a nightmare?” 

“I can’t remember,” Justin says, still whispering because he’s too scared to talk out loud.

Brian nods in response. “What’s that noise?” Brian asks, cocking his head towards the loft kitchen.

Justin listens, and sure enough, there is a loud rumbling coming from the kitchen.

“It sounds like the dishwasher,” Brian says finally, and hearing the noise, Justin is suddenly freaked out more. Brian starts to shift to get up, presumably to go investigate the dishwasher noise, but Justin clutches his shoulders frantically.

“Don’t leave me,” Justin says, feeling like he’s choking back sobs, and Brian stops to really look at him again, realizing for the first time how freaked out Justin actually is.

Justin tries to recover, though, taking a deep breath as Brian shifts closer to cradle Justin against his body. Brian makes little soothing whispers for a few minutes while Justin pulls himself together, and then Brian says he should really go check on that noise.

“Okay,” Justin agrees, taking another deep breath and trying not to cry, though telling himself that he’s being irrational isn’t doing much to keep back the tears. “Just…let me come with you,” he says. They both get up, and Justin makes them put on pants before going to investigate the noise, because, you know, he’s still vaguely afraid they’re going to encounter an alien in the kitchen or something and it’s always better to have clothes on when you encounter an alien.

Brian pads into the kitchen after turning on the light in the bedroom, and Justin follows behind him, tiptoeing on the wood floor and trying to pretend that he isn’t actually cowering behind Brian.

As they get closer to the kitchen, it is easier and easier to identify the strange sound as the noise of the dishwasher. The both end up standing in the kitchen, staring at the island and the obviously running dishwasher.

“Did you turn that on?” Brian asks Justin, gesturing towards the dishwasher.

Justin thinks that this would be the perfect time to make some sort of joke, or a witty comeback on how, yeah, he woke up in the middle of the night to do the dishes, doesn’t he always? But he can’t really get anything out, so he just shakes his head quickly.

Brian eyes the dishwasher for another second, and then slowly reaches his hand out towards it. Justin almost screams, and claps his hand over his mouth. Brian presses the off button gingerly. The dishwasher grunts, and then stops, and they can hear the water draining through the pipes.

Justin thinks he might pass out. He and Brian both stare at the dishwasher for another minute, and then Justin can’t help but let out a choked kind of laugh. Brian looks over at him, and smirks, and then they both look back at the dishwasher and are consumed in relief and a semi-hysterical round of giggles, leaning against each other and the counter behind them, and still eyeing the dishwasher warily.

Finally, Brian reaches out and pulls the dishwasher open, waving away the steam that comes out, and bends over to look inside. Justin doesn’t know what he’s looking for, exactly, but it makes him vaguely uncomfortable to see Brian’s head so close to the dishwasher, so he places his hand on Brian’s back and kind of tugs Brian back away from the dishwasher by the back of his pants. Stepping back from the dishwasher and turning his head back to give Justin a reassuring smile, Brian closes the dishwasher up again, shrugging.

Justin laughs nervously again. 

“I guess we can go back to bed,” Brian offers.

At just that moment, the dishwasher rumbles and starts running again. Justin screams, he can’t help it, and Brian starts violently. “Jesus Christ,” Brian swears, jabbing at the off button. And the dishwasher turns off again, and the silence is filled with the noise of Justin hyperventilating.

Justin’s bent over, trying to breathe and back away from the dishwasher towards the couch and the door at the same time. Brian looks worriedly and Justin and pulls a brown bag out of one of the kitchen drawers. “Hey, hey,” he says, wrapping an arm around Justin’s shoulders and trying to guide Justin to the couch. “It’s okay,” he soothes. 

Justin resists being led over to the couch, and keeps staring at the dishwasher. “Brian,” he gasps, and he can feel his arms starting to tingle, which is a good sign that if he doesn’t calm down soon he’s going to pass out. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

They end up sitting outside the loft door, leaning against the brick walls, Justin half-collapsed into Brian’s lap. Brian’s head is leaning back against the wall, and his left hand holds the brown bag while his right is wrapped securely around Justin’s waist. They sit there, listening to Justin’s breathing steady out. The elevator starts, suddenly, startling both of them, but it’s just going to one of the lower floors.

After five minutes of sitting there, Justin is about to fall asleep there, leaning against Brian’s chest, and Brian suggests that they go back inside to bed. Justin jerks his head up at that suggestion, suddenly alert. Brian grabs the bag again, in anticipation.

Justin swallows. “Brian,” he says, eyeing the closed loft door. “I can’t go back in there. I just can’t.”

Brian closes his eyes for a moment, tilting his head back and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fine,” he says, opening his eyes again. He shifts to get up, though, and Justin has a sudden moment of horror that Brian is going to go back in and leave him out here by himself. “Lemme get my keys, and our shoes, and we’ll go over to Deb’s, okay?”

Justin nods, and Brian disappears back through the metal doorway. Justin waits for him, clutching the brown bag anxiously in his fist. Brian reappears shortly, distributing t-shirts and socks and shoes and holding his wallet. “I’ll call a plumber in the morning,” Brian announces, but that’s too far away for Justin to think about right now.

The car ride passes as a soft blur of darkness, the strange silence of streets that aren’t Liberty Avenue at three in the morning. They arrive at Deb’s, and Justin huddles in the curve of Brian’s arm while Brian gives Deb some bullshit explanation for why they’re knocking on the door in the middle of the night. After a lot of worried looks at Justin burying himself in Brian’s armpit, Deb assures them that they’re welcome to stay here as long as the loft is having plumbing problems, and she offers to put sheets on the bed in Michael’s old room. 

Brian shrugs the offer off and tells Debbie to go back to bed, saying that he’d rather just stretch out on the couch. “You can go upstairs, if you want,” he tells Justin, but Justin shakes his head quickly.

“I wanna stay with you,” Justin says, the first thing he’s said since they arrived at Debbie’s and his unusual silence is making Debbie worry like a mother hen.

“Okay,” Brian says agreeably, casually squeezing Justin’s shoulders. “Maybe we’ll watch tv for a little while,” he tells Deb, and finally, he gets Deb to go back up to bed, though she sends worried glances down at them from every step.

They take off their shoes, and Brian turns the tv on with the volume really low so that it’s a comforting white noise in the background. He lies down on the couch on his back, and Justin climbs over him to squeeze himself in between Brian and the back of the couch, resting his head on Brian’s chest. Brian strokes his back a little bit. They watch the television without seeing it as an excuse to not have to close their eyes.

Brian doesn’t think he’ll fall asleep again, though he knows Justin will because panic attacks always exhaust Justin and knock him out like a light. But at some point during the nature special on zebras and hyenas, he too dozes off.

They both awake to a strange rumbling noise. It’s still dark outside, so Brian guesses it’s maybe six in the morning, and he can hear Deb’s dishwasher running. Justin scrambles to sit upright, turns pale as a ghost, and stares at the kitchen as though he expects it to kill him any second. Brian, not quite as freaked out as Justin but not exactly calm, either, starts to get up off the couch when suddenly the noise stops. Justin gives a choked sob.

Vic appears in the kitchen doorway, looking apologetic. “Sorry, sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to wake you guys. I hadn’t run the dishwasher last night so I started it now but I wasn’t thinking that it would wake you up.”

Brian stares at him for a moment, blankly, then recovers, shakes his head and tells Vic not to worry about it. Justin suddenly bolts out of the room and out the front door, leaving his shoes on the floor in the living room and the door wide open behind him.

Vic and Brian follow behind him. “Is he all right?” Vic asks worriedly.

“It’s been a long night,” Brian says as they catch up with Justin on driveway, where he’s bent over and gasping for breath. Brian wraps an arm around him to support him but keeps Justin’s head down with his other hand to help the blood flow so Justin won’t pass out. “Why don’t you get our shoes?” Brian suggests to Vic, who heads back to the house to get them. Brian begins a soothing litany of reassurances for Justin.

Eventually, he manages to coax Justin over towards the porch step, and they put on their shoes when Vic brings them back. Justin calms down slowly. “They’re following me,” Justin says absently.

“No one’s following you,” Brian says disgustedly. “Don’t be stupid.”

“They are,” Justin says, with a distant look in his eyes. And Brian would try to refute him once again, except it is clear that Justin won’t hear him.

***

They sit on the steps, and eventually Vic brings out some oatmeal, and they eat it, but cautiously no one brings up the idea of going back in to the house.

Vic seems to sense Brian’s thought, which is that Justin really shouldn’t be left alone even though it’s about time for Brian to be heading off to work. So Vic asks Justin if he’s working at the diner today. Justin shakes his head. “Do you want to stay here and help me make truffles?” Vic asks.

Brian can almost see it warring out on Justin’s face—chocolate versus the dishwasher-filled kitchen, and for a second he almost believes that chocolate will fix everything. But it doesn’t. “No, thanks,” Justin says.

“Do you have big plans for today?” Vic asks casually.

Justin looks frozen for a moment, glancing nervously at Brian. “I thought,” he begins, “I thought maybe I’d just get some drawing done.”

Vic nods agreeably, and eventually he takes the empty oatmeal bowls back into the house.

Brian squints into the sun, which is getting higher and higher in the fall sky, and wishes he had his sunglasses—squinting causes wrinkles. “So,” he says to Justin, “do you want me to take you back to the loft?”

Justin flinches at that. It’s a harsh question, but he has to shake Justin into some sort of admission, force him into acknowledging how weird he’s being, bring back the brave boy Brian loves to face the evil dishwasher.

Justin raises his head slowly, determinedly, and Brian has a moment of hope. “You don’t need to drop me anywhere,” Justin says. “I can walk to the field from here, and I just wanna hang out there today.”

* * *

When Brian’s laptop at work finally says it’s five o’clock, he packs up all his shit and hurries—though he doesn’t like to admit he’s hurrying—to drive by the abandoned alien lot. He pulls up by the curb and lays on the horn, and is pleased to see Justin’s head pop up and wave. Justin comes on over and gets in the car agreeably, fastening his seatbelt as Brian turns the car around back towards the loft.

It isn’t until they’re climbing up the stairs that Justin begins to look nervous. 

“Did you have a plumber come by today?” Justin asks finally as they walk up the last flight.

“Yeah, I called the guy and he said he would—the landlord should have let him in.”

Justin nods, but still looks a little wary.

“Look,” Brian says, pulling a yellow carbon-copy off the loft door, “he left a receipt.”

“Oh,” Justin says, and they’re both still standing awkwardly outside the door and neither of them make a move to open it. “So, did he fix it?”

Brian reads the receipt, and contemplates lying. “No,” he says finally. “He couldn’t find a problem. He says maybe it’s electrical—I can call an electrician tomorrow.”

Justin nods again, slowly, and looks at the door. Brian looks at Justin, and then he, too, looks at the door.

“Maybe we should wait until the electrician comes,” Justin ventures finally.

Brian wonders vaguely what it is they’re waiting to do, but he knows what Justin’s getting at.

He doesn’t like thinking about--whatever it is he’s not thinking about, fuck aliens, broken dishwashers, whatever, and fuck it all, he doesn’t like Justin thinking about it either, so he tries to distract him.

Brian tugs Justin in close, cupping one hand around Justin’s ass, and the other around the back of his neck. He leans in and licks Justin’s neck as Justin tenses and tries to pull away, and then whispers in his ear. “Maybe we should go to a hotel,” he says. “One with a huge whirlpool tub, so I can fuck you underwater.”

He’s got Justin’s attention now, either with his words or the lazy grinding of his hips, and a smile is starting to form on Justin’s face, so Brian knows he’s gonna get his way. But when he pulls away and steps towards the loft door, Justin’s smile disappears in an instant, and he backs away towards the stairs, almost tripping on the first step.

“Hey, watch it,” Brian says sharply. Justin turns around quickly, catching himself on the railing of the stairway, and gives Brian an apologetic smile.

“I thought we were gonna get out of here,” Justin says, gesturing down the stairwell with his head.

“We are,” Brian says. “I just have to grab a few things, first.”

“Oh,” Justin says, getting that nervous look on his face again. “I think I’ll just wait in the car, okay?”

And it’s not okay, but Brian doesn’t really have any fucking choice about it.

***

Brian is not a man who introspects often. But sometimes, he finds himself taking stock of his life, and sometimes he is pleased with his latest bank statement and sometimes he likes the guys in the backroom.

One afternoon, sitting in his office, after hanging up on a discussion with an annoying client, Brian finds himself considering his current situation. He has a job that makes him very very rich, which is good. He has a loft furnished full of beautiful things, which would be good, were he ever to see that loft any longer. Unfortunately, he also has a kid who's frightened to the point of incoherency of his dishwasher, and he's spent the last month of his life living out of a crap motel with the aforementioned kid.

It is apparently four miles from the motel to the alien field, as Brian now thinks of it, and Justin walks those miles every day. Brian picks him up there in the evening, and sometimes he even has to coax Justin away, and then he picks up some take out and they go back to the motel room, which Justin has filled with pictures tacked on all of the walls, most of them drawn in red ink. Sometimes, Justin makes his pictures into little boats and floats them around in the sink in the bathroom, but this frequently makes him frustrated, for reasons Brian does not fully understand.

Justin only seems normal when they are fucking, now, when he's close to orgasm and the only thing filling his eyes is pure lust--Brian likes that look, because he remembers the look of lust from before. Most of Justin's other expressions are new, it feels.

Yesterday, Justin asked Brian if they had any tin foil, and Brian really, really doesn't want to know what that was about.

They don't really talk about going back to the loft anymore. Brian doesn't know how to bring it up and somehow it's easier to pretend that *if* they were to go back to the loft, then everything would be normal again, and it's only living in this motel room that is making Justin so peculiar. He doesn't really want to test that theory.

Tuesday afternoon, Brian goes to the field to pick Justin up. It's late November, so even though it's still early evening, it's dark outside, and fucking cold. He makes a note to buy Justin a warmer jacket.

When he finds Justin, his heart skips a beat, because Justin is huddled up on the ground, twitching and mumbling about something.

"Christ," Brian mutters, crouching down next to him. "Justin," he says. "Justin, what's wrong?"

It turns out that Justin is merely asleep. He wakes up, shivering, and blinking at Brian and the darkness of the field, and he shies away from Brian's hand on his shoulder.

TO BE CONTINUED


	3. Alien 2.4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please remember the warnings!
> 
> This is just a short bit to torture everyone, and because I am feeling needy and want some more comments. Plus, no one else--well, except for Jenn who was very nice and posted twice--is posting any fic! It's horrible!

Justin is distant during the car ride. "They had me," he says finally.

Brian gives him a sharp glance as he drives.

"They had me," Justin says, and his voice is starting to crack, "and they were fucking me."

"Who?" Brian says sharply.

Justin is quiet for a moment. "Them," he says finally.

"It was just a dream," Brian says, staring at the road while stuck at a red light.

He looks over at Justin, who is starting to tear up. "It hurt so much," Justin says, as though it's painful for him to even talk about it now.

Something twists hard in Brian's stomach, and he changes his mind, suddenly, making a right turn instead of going on straight towards the motel. He thinks Justin might comment, but Justin doesn't even seem to notice, he's staring blankly at the dashboard.

Brian parks in front of the loft, and gets out, and when Justin just sits blankly in the passenger seat, he goes and opens the door for Justin, which at least prompts him to get out.

TO BE CONTINUED


	4. Alien 2.5

When they got to the third flight of stairs, Justin starts to tremble, and Brian has to bodily drag him through the loft door, gripping his shoulders tightly. The loft is completely silent; Justin’s frantic breathing echoes for a moment before Brian’s footsteps fill it with sound. He leaves Justin standing between the doorway and the couch, saying, “Stay there,” and he walks over to the storage closet, pulling something out.

Justin watches, still somewhat frantic, as Brian returns with a sledgehammer. Brian looks once at Justin’s face, but Justin’s expression looks as though he is picturing Brian hitting _him_ with the hammer, so Brian looks away.

Brian swings the sledgehammer and bashes the dishwasher in. After the first hit, the dishwasher starts grumbling and running. Justin begins to scream, and Brian hits the dishwasher again and again until it is a heap of rubble in the middle of his kitchen and it has finally stopped making noise, content now to slowly leak out a puddle of water.

Justin is still screaming. He doesn’t move, at all, he is still standing where Brian placed him, but he has wrapped his arms around his chest and is screaming and staring at the dishwasher.

Brian drops the hammer in the wreckage and drags Justin closer, into the kitchen.

Justin’s screaming changes into a continued repetition of “Oh my god.”

“It’s dead,” Brian says, waving his arm at it as though Justin weren’t already staring at it.

“Oh my god. Oh my god.”

“That’s the end of it, do you hear me?”

“Oh my god.” Justin looks up from the wreckage suddenly. “They’re going to get me,” he says, and his tone has this resigned certainty to it.

Brian is furious. “They are not fucking going to get you. They’re dead.”

Justin shakes his head. “They’re not dead. They’re going to get me.” The way he says it, it’s clear he doesn’t care if Brian believes him or not. Justin’s convinced and that’s all that matters to him.

Brian pushes Justin closer to the counter, and Justin trips, trying to avoid stepping into the growing pool of water from the dishwasher. Brian catches him as he falls but pushes him up against the counter again, and Justin ends up with his chest pressed uncomfortably against the counter, and Brian reaches around from behind him and roughly jerks his pants open and shoves them down.

“Oh my god,” Justin says again, and he can’t take his eyes off of the wreckage of the dishwasher, and if the pool of water keeps growing pretty soon it’s going to touch his foot, but he can’t move because Brian’s pressing him against the counter and fuck, now Brian’s fucking him but he’s not ready yet, and it hurts. “Brian,” Justin says. “Brian, you forgot to use a condom.”

Brian doesn’t answer that, because he didn’t forget--he never fucking forgets--but now he’s going to make sure that no fucking aliens are going to take Justin because Justin is fucking his.

Justin grimaces as Brian thrusts and his chest is pressed harder into the sharp edge of the counter.

* * *

Afterwards, everything is different.

There is rubble in the middle of the kitchen, but that’s not so much it because they both ignore it and don’t talk about it. They live in the loft—Brian brings their things back from the motel the next day, and Justin isn’t frightened of the loft any longer, it seems, or at least he makes no real moves to leave, which is good, in Brian’s opinion, because it’s too fucking cold to be hanging out in a field.

And they still sleep together, at night, when Justin sleeps, though often he is too preoccupied with something to go to bed. But Brian doesn’t fuck him anymore.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	5. Alien 2.6

Sometimes Justin has good days, lucid days, when Justin says something witty, and then they laugh together as though they weren’t both wearing cooking utensils on their heads. Sometimes Brian can imagine that Justin’s going to get better, that years from now they’ll be happy and normal and this’ll just be that weird part of their lives that they don’t talk about.

But most of the time, when Brian’s honest with himself, or at least not blatantly delusional, he has to admit that Justin’s only getting worse.

* * *

Brian awakes in the middle of the night to a peculiar sound—when he realizes it’s the sound of a knife being sharpened, his heart skips a beat and he’s out of bed in an instant.

Justin’s standing in the kitchen, framed by the odd light under the stove and the glow of the loft door alarm system. Justin’s taken his shirt off, and he’s staring at his stomach intently, with a small knife—sharpened, Brian assumes from the noises—poised a few inches below his ribs on the right side.

“Justin!” Brian calls sharply, running towards the kitchen, and Justin at least looks up when Brian shouts his name, which gives Brian enough time to get over there—not too late, not this time, thank God—and grab his wrist. “What the fuck are you doing?” Brian yells at Justin, but Justin’s in one of those moods, one of the trancelike moods where he doesn’t talk.

So he doesn’t say anything now, but he struggles, making a low keening noise that just breaks Brian’s heart, and trying to twist the knife away from Brian, waving his arm around, and Brian’s sure that one of them is going to end up cut. He clenches Justin’s wrist tighter, and tighter, until Justin cries out in pain, and drops the knife, and it lands with a clatter on the floor in the kitchen.

Brian lets go of Justin’s wrist, then, but Justin just lunges towards the knife again, and Brian tackles him, wrapping his arms around Justin’s waist and pulling him bodily along the kitchen floor, away from the knife. He sits on Justin’s hips and pins his upper arms as Justin struggles on the kitchen floor like a fish on the bottom of a boat.

“Jesus Christ,” Brian says, struggling to hold Justin down and wanting to sob. “Justin, why?” He asks. “Why?” He asks again, closing his eyes tightly for a moment.

Justin turns his head to look at Brian over his shoulder. “Brian,” he says desperately, and there’s a look in his eyes, and Brian thinks he knows now what ancient people said when the looked at someone and called them demon-possessed. “Brian, I have to get rid of it!”

“Get rid of what?” Brian asks helplessly, still holding Justin’s upper arms firmly enough to bruise them.

“The alien!” Justin shouts, as though this is obvious. “It’s growing inside me,” he says frantically. “I have to get rid of it.”

“Justin,” Brian says, shaking his head slowly. “It’s not. It’s really not.”

But Justin’s not listening any longer, he’s twisting again and reaching for the knife, and it’s back to a fight on the physical level.

Hours later, after Justin’s fighting and hysterics have finally exhausted him into a fitful sleep, Brian—just as exhausted himself—manages to pick him up and carry him into the bedroom. Then he pulls out the box from under his bed, gets out some silk ties, and he ties Justin’s hands together, just to be sure.

After gathering together all the knives, even the butter knives, and his switchblade, and then all the lighters, though he can’t even be sure he’s found all of those, Christ, they’re everywhere. Matches from the cabinet, and razors from the bathroom, and he puts them all into his file cabinet and locks it. He thinks about where he can put the key, and finally he hides it in the wreckage of the dishwasher, because that’s one thing that he knows that Justin will never, ever touch.

Then he goes to bed, and sits with his back resting against the pillows. He gathers Justin into his arms, and rocks him back and forth, ignoring the tears streaming down his own cheeks. “Why’d you have to do it, Justin?” He asks. “Why’d you have to do it?” Justin mutters and squirms in his sleep like a fussing child, but Brian ignores it. “You really didn’t want to do it,” he tells Justin, his voice cracking. “You didn’t want to do that,” he repeats. “Christ!” Brian shouts finally, looking up at the ceiling, and then sobbing and burying his face in Justin’s hair.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	6. Alien 2.7

So there can be no more delusions. The next morning, after double-checking that everything remotely dangerous is locked up and assuring that Justin’s in a relatively good mood sketching alien spaceships, Brian makes some phone calls.

He meets Jennifer Taylor at a cute café that is way too chipper for his purposes. She can tell right off that something is wrong. “You look horrible,” she exclaims, then apologizes. “Sorry. But are you all right?”

Brian clears his throat and gives a little nod. “Yeah, I’m all right.”

“Why did you need me to meet you here right away?” Jennifer asks. “Is something wrong with Justin?” Probably Brian’s complete lack of a response to that question is enough of an answer to that question. “Where is he?” She asks.

“He’s back at the loft,” Brian says, aware that his voice is rough and might crack at any moment. “He’s…” Brian starts, then fades off, closing his eyes and wondering if there’s any right way to put this. “He’s sick.”

“What’s wrong with him? Does he need to see a doctor?” Jennifer asks, all earnest mother-y and ready to go solve all her son’s problems.

“He’s insane,” Brian says finally, and that was perhaps a little too blunt, because Jennifer doesn’t even believe him, she’s giving a tentative little laugh and wondering what all this is really about.

Brian rubs his eyebrows, frowning, and stares at the wall wondering how to explain and hoping that Justin’s not trying to eviscerate himself with a fork right now back at the loft. Maybe he should have locked those up, too.

“You’re serious,” Jennifer says finally. Brian nods. “What do you mean?” She says.

“He thinks there are aliens after him,” Brian says, crumpling a napkin in his fist.

Jennifer gives this little surprised laugh, looking blindly around the café herself, as though in one of the elaborately named coffee drinks there might be an escape from the horrible seriousness of Brian’s expression.

“I’ve arranged for a psychiatrist to come over to the loft to see Justin in an hour,” Brian says. “Maybe you’d like to go see him now?” He suggests. There’s no way to explain.

Jennifer nods helplessly, and he drives the two of them back to his place. They ride in the car and the elevator in silence, and as he gets his keys out of his pocket and unlocks the door, Brian wonders vaguely what Jennifer is thinking.

He slides the loft door open, and hears Jennifer gasp as she takes it all in—the compulsive sketches of fluttering paper tacked up on every available surface, the alien mural Justin had begun one day on the ceiling, the wreckage of the dishwasher that Brian’s not sure he can ever explain, and in the wood floor of the kitchen, nicks in the finish from their scuffle last night with the knife. Jennifer can’t see that level of detail, but it’s all painted out for Brian, and he can’t not see it.

Justin wanders over, wearing his colander and his face rough with beard stubble since Brian didn’t want to bother with trying to shave him this morning after locking his own razor back in the cabinet. “Mom,” Justin says, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. He rounds on Brian. “Why did you bring her here? It isn’t safe! They might get her.”

“I didn’t have a choice, Justin,” Brian says softly.

“You at least need a helmet,” Justin tells his mother. “That will help protect you.” He goes off to the kitchen and returns with two saucepans, which he hands to Brian and his mother. Jennifer watches Brian take the saucepan and wordlessly put it on his head.

And she weeps.

* * *

Jennifer leaves, eventually, in tears again. The psychiatrists leave, with arrangements to come back the next morning with an ambulance and restraining devices—restraining devices, fuck!—and Brian’s left alone with Justin in the loft for the last time. Justin wanders off to bed fairly early, but Brian is still awake, and he wants so badly to have a drink, but he can’t, because he can’t afford the possibility of screwing this up.

By eleven, everything is prepared. He has the gun loaded and sitting on the counter, next to the note, which says simply, “I’m sorry, Jennifer,” and he hopes, for her sake, that it’s the psychiatrists that come in first the next morning.

Pillow in hand, Brian goes to stand by the side of the bed, looking down at Justin sleeping. He’s tempted to take the colander off of Justin’s head—it usually falls off during the night anyway—so that he could stroke that blond hair one last time, but he refuses to let himself. But he can’t help but study Justin’s features, holding his hand lightly beneath Justin’s nose for a minute, feeling the soft breaths of air moving, watching the minute movements of Justin’s chest, up and down in the night.

He realizes that the colander is actually probably going to get in the way, so he does take it off after all, setting it gently on the bed next to Justin. Justin’s hair is long now—he’s been too distracted for anything as banal as having his hair trimmed, so the longest bits of it brush his shoulders. It’s mussed, from the colander, and Brian wants to smooth it out, but won’t let himself. He can do that—after. Yes. Then he can straighten Justin’s hair and everything, so he’ll look exactly like the angel that he is. Justin will be forever beautiful, which is how it should be. Brian doesn’t imagine that he himself will look like much after the back of his head is blown off, but that’s probably appropriate.

He holds the pillow tight to his chest, wrapping his arms around it and shaking slightly, burying his face in it for a moment to release a noiseless sob. But eventually he pulls his head up again, just in time to see Justin stirring in the bed.

Justin wakes up, blinking his eyes open. When he sees Brian, he smiles the most perfect smile, sleepy and content. “Brian,” he says dreamily. “Brian, I’m so happy you’re wearing your helmet. I don’t want the aliens to get you,” Justin confides.

Brian nods, shortly, and can’t force himself to smile back at Justin. “Go back to sleep,” he tells Justin, who obeys, stretching a little bit and then dropping back to sleep with a little sigh.

END PART TWO

(There is a part three, just so you know. So there's more yet to come, of course.)


	7. Alien 3.1

The psychiatrists anticipate that it will be difficult to move Justin from the loft to the psychiatric facility, and they arrive prepared with burly men in white coats and all sorts of restraining devices. But in the end, all it takes is Brian standing near the loft door, holding out his hand and calling, “Justin, it’s time to go.” And Justin comes over and takes his hand, giving Brian a wide grin even, and follows him down to the ambulance, glancing around himself and humming a little bit the way Gus does in the park.

When they get there, Justin moves to get out of the back agreeably enough, but Brian stops him by tugging on the hand he’s still holding. He pulls Justin back, and uses his other hand to cup Justin’s cheek, looking into guileless eyes. He leans in close and presses his lips chastely to Justin’s cheek as a last goodbye. Betrayal with a kiss.

Once inside the facility, Justin’s eyes begin to flicker around the facility skeptically—he doesn’t like it, or he’s starting to pick up on the tension surrounding Brian and his mother. They are led to Justin’s new room, which has sterile white bedding and disgusting mint green walls. Justin has a private room in the best facility in the state, because Brian looked everything up, and when Jennifer protested that she wasn’t sure if Craig’s insurance would cover it, Brian insisted that he’d pay the difference.

Neither Jennifer nor Brian know quite what to say—one of the nurses is giving them a little spiel about the facilities, but Brian’s attention is still on Justin, who everyone seems to be pretending doesn’t exist.

The real trauma begins when one of the orderlies takes away Justin’s colander. Justin shouts a protest, and reaches for it, the orderly holding it away and above his head, and Justin jumps for it like a little kid, screaming.

“Jesus Christ,” Brian swears. “What are you doing? Give him the fucking colander.”

“It’s regulations,” the orderly says, still holding the colander up above his head. “Violent patients aren’t allowed to have anything metal.”

“Besides,” the nurse chimes in, “it’s not good to encourage delusional behavior. Patients have the best prognosis when their delusions are countered with rational explanations.”

“Well start fucking explaining,” Brian barks, gesturing towards Justin, who has now collapsed on the floor, wracked with sobs. “You’re fucking torturing him.”

The nurse dismisses Justin with a glance. “He wouldn’t listen right now. Don’t bother indulging this kind of tantrum.”

Brian swears again, and leaves, slamming out the doors and finally finding himself out in front of the facility, leaning his palms against Jennifer’s sedan and swearing. He gets out a cigarette, blatantly ignoring the “No smoking on the premises,” signs.

Jennifer eventually emerges from building as well. “They said we can come back during visiting hours, if we want,” she says tentatively, but Brian doesn’t respond, he’s staring off into the sky.

Jennifer waits for a moment, then gets her keys out of her purse and beeps the doors of her car unlocked. “Where would you like me to drop you off?” She asks Brian.

He doesn’t say anything, but after she gets into the car, he opens the passenger door and slides into the seat. Jennifer looks over, and she can just make out a tear sliding down his cheek. “My office,” Brian says finally, and his voice is remarkably steady.

Jennifer backs the car out of the lot and starts to head downtown. “Brian, if you need any help with any of his things or anything—“

“I’ll be fine,” Brian interrupts, still staring resolutely out the window.

Jennifer nods, gripping the steering wheel tightly. “All right.”

TO BE CONTINUED


	8. Alien 3.2

At his office, Brian barks at Cynthia, ignores questions about why he’s late and where he was yesterday, and stares at his laptop, pretending that he can actually see what’s on the screen.

That afternoon, after he snaps a disparaging insult at a client in the middle of a meeting, Vance corners him in his office.

“What are you doing?” Vance asks exasperatedly. “I can’t believe I’d even have to tell you not to antagonize a multi-million dollar client.”

“The client’s an idiot.”

“Who cares? After you missed all the meetings yesterday and insult them today, they’ll be an idiot client signing with Greenland and Frith in New York. I want to know what’s going on.”

Brian doesn’t say anything and stares at the wall.

Vance tries another tactic. “Where were you yesterday?”

“Out,” Brian says shortly. “It was an emergency.”

“Well, is everything all right?” Vance’s tone is a mixture of exasperated and puzzled.

Brian’s silent for a moment again, and then he clears his throat. “No,” he says, and stalks out of the office, ignoring Vance and Cynthia’s calls trailing behind him.

Vance turns to Cynthia. “What’s wrong with him?” Cynthia can only shake her head and shrug.

Brian disappears from Vangard for the rest of the week with no explanations, but he reappears at five in the morning the next Monday, and begins to catch up on his work. Some tweaks on the proposal and some serious ass-kissing to the other less idiotic members of the client delegation even save Gardner’s account from switching to G & F.

Vance is somewhat mollified by this, but still disturbed by the flakiness of last week, and wants some sort of explanation about what happened, and an assurance that it isn’t going to happen again. He goes to try to talk to Brian again that afternoon at around four, only to find Brian snapping his briefcase closed and shutting down his laptop.

“Where are you going?” Vance asks—in vain, because Brian doesn’t respond. “Look, we still need to talk about the Carter account.”

“I okayed the changes,” Brian says. “If there’s any problems leave it on my desk and I’ll deal with it first thing in the morning.” And he slings his suit jacket over his arm and is out the door before Vance can say anything more.

This becomes routine, though. Brian arrives at ungodly hours of the morning and works brilliantly through until exactly four o’clock, at which point he leaves the office. He refuses to stay later for meetings or client dinners, and delegates any traveling to the execs under him.

Vance doesn’t understand any of it, but questioning Brian seems to get him nowhere, and eventually he’s just glad that there’s a pattern he can count on.

To Be Continued


	9. Alien 3.3 - THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank God it's finished. I don't think I could have taken writing this very much longer--revising it will be hell enough.
> 
> Please remember the warnings.
> 
> Myrna, the kidney thing is just for you.
> 
> Wrenlet, the second to last paragraph is for you. Tell me if that's too obvious.

After several years, Justin does not even look like Justin anymore. One of the first things the hospital had done when he got there had been sheer his hair short, which made it almost painful for Brian to look at him, with that horrible buzz cut, though he could almost understand it, having struggled through combing Justin’s long hair enough times himself.

But that’s the least of it now. His hair’s still short, and darker, and dull. His skin is dull, too, and has a waxy sheen to it. His medications—the same ones that make him drool and fall asleep randomly—make him gain weight, so he’s grossly rounded, now, and his face is a rounded shape that reminds Brian vaguely of a bus driver he had in junior high.

He’s more dangerous to fight with now, because he’s heavy and has learned how to throw his weight around, but there aren’t really fights anymore. The drugs have taken care of that, too.

If a stranger looked and Brian and Justin together now, they’d be hard pressed to say who was older. Justin has that aged look to him that Brian used to associate only with guys who were positive and not taking care of themselves—Justin has the complexion of someone with a terminal illness.

* * *

It would have been easier, Brian often thinks, if Justin had just overdosed on drugs, or died in a car accident, or even never woken up from his post-prom coma. That was the happiest night of his life, after all, and maybe it would have been better off if it had all ended there.

Brian doesn’t deserve easy, maybe. And everything is filled with just enough bullshit to keep it difficult, and when the injunction Craig filed to keep him from visiting Justin was removed, it was only just in time for Justin to have another allergic reaction to his medications and be hospitalized for kidney damage.

But no one ever tells you what the future is going to be like. No one ever could, and if Justin’s doctors even had an inkling, they never mentioned it, and it was always this bubbly optimism about the latest medications, and oh, yes, he’s developed an allergy to that one, but don’t worry, there are plenty of others and remember, Brian—drugs can fix everything.

* * *

Some days it is easy to look at him now and be completely convinced that this being is not Justin at all, that it is a blob of living flesh residing in a room where Brian comes to do penance, but has nothing to do with a boy he once knew.

But then Justin surprises him again, which in and of itself should be proof that it is Justin in there, after all. Brian misses his normal visits two days in a row because Vic is hospitalized again—and if he’d known that getting old meant spending all of his time visiting people he knew in the hospital, he would have killed himself back at twenty-nine—and when Brian comes in on the third day, and sits down, Justin turns to him and says, in a completely conversational tone, “You weren’t here yesterday.”

And Brian sucks in a startled breath, because he hadn’t realized that Justin was alert enough to even notice his presence, must less note days when he isn’t here. “I couldn’t make it,” Brian says finally. “I’m sorry.”

Justin kind of nods. He’s looking away now, staring at the wall again, and starting to kind of rock forward and back in his chair a little bit. Brian doesn’t think he’ll get a response to his apology, because getting one coherent sentence out of Justin a month is really a notable achievement. But Justin twitches, still staring away, and says, “Sorry’s bullshit.”

Brian never believed that more strongly than at that moment.

* * *

Brian has a lot of time to think, sitting in the sterile room, as Justin stares at the wall. And he thinks about a lot of things. He thinks about how Justin’s hips moved as he carried platters in the diner. He thinks about the way Justin bit his lip as he fixed his hair in the mirror.

He thinks about the day in the diner when Justin first excitedly announced his alien encounter, and about what might have happened if he had just listened to Justin then, that day, maybe before it was too late. He thinks about the day he helped Justin test the soil for mineral traces. He thinks about the day he left terrified Justin in bed to see why the dishwasher was making noise. He thinks about the day he held the pillow in his hands, staring over Justin, laying, blond and angelic, on those dark blue sheets, and he thinks about what might have happened if he’d held the pillow down over that face and just waited for the noises to stop completely.

He thinks about the day he led Justin out of the loft and left him here; he thinks about the way Justin cried when they took away his colander.

He thinks about Justin smiling. About Justin happy. About Justin dancing at Babylon, Justin flirting with guys at the diner, Justin watching PowerPuff Girls. And he weeps.

* * *

On July 27, 2012, exactly ten years since Justin Taylor first claimed to have seen an alien space ship in a then-abandoned lot which has now been built-up into an apartment complex, he is kidnapped from the Alken Grove Psychiatric Institution.

The suspected kidnapper is Brian Kinney, 41, of Vangard-Kinney Advertising. Security tapes of the institution reveal that Mr. Kinney was visiting Mr. Taylor at the time of his disappearance; Mr. Kinney has since been reported missing himself. There were no witnesses to the disappearance, though the institution was fully staffed and it happened in the middle of the afternoon. Unfortunately, an electrical error in the kitchens of the institution—resulting from the malfunction of one of the cafeteria dishwashers—interfered with the security cameras, leaving the crucial moments when Kinney and Taylor must have left the patient’s room and the premises as only a three-second blip of static.

Nurses report that Kinney visited daily, and were confused as to why he would wish to remove Taylor from the institution, though there is some talk that he was displeased with new plans for medication necessary to help alleviate evident stomach pain in the patient.

Any information as to the whereabouts of Brian Kinney or Justin Taylor may be directed to: Pittsburgh Police Department, 431 Prospect Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 20343

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Alien Warnings
> 
> Major character death (maybe, sort of), violence (maybe, kind of), rape/non-consensual sex (sort of, maybe), mpreg (not really), unprotected sex, massive angst.
> 
> Do not say I didn't warn you!


End file.
